


Waking Up Has Never Been Easy

by cyndisision



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Dismemberment, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Self-Harm, Spideypool if you squint, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, The fourth wall was irreparably destroyed in the making of this fic, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, all the usual Deadpool-related warnings basically, but it's temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:06:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndisision/pseuds/cyndisision
Summary: Five times Wade Wilson woke up from death alone, and one time he didn’t.





	Waking Up Has Never Been Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sev for the beta!
> 
> Detailed content warnings at the end.

** One **

 

Record scratch. Freeze frame on my disturbingly good-looking mug (emphasis on the ‘disturbing’), then a slow rotation of the camera to show that I’m upside down. In a tree. 

 

Yup, that’s me. 

 

You may be wondering how I got into this situation. Frankly, so the hell am I. Where my head’s at, all I can see is these little lights in the pitch blackness. Twinkly little fuckers. Can’t figure out what they’re supposed to be until I remember – oh yeah, right. Stars. Haven’t seen those in a while. Seen plenty of lights: dim, grungy lights that never turned off to let you know what time of night it was; bright, stabby lights boring right into your optic nerve whenever that shitstick Francis felt like playing bad cop/bad cop; and, most recently, a happy orange glow when I fireballed the place to the ground. Not stars, though. Too much being held prisoner by a secretive government organization, or too much light pollution. 

 

So I’m out in the middle of nowhere, up a tree, and I can’t remember what the shit just happened to me. 

 

Oh, and when I say, “Where my head’s at,” I mean that literally. My head, along with part of my torso, is dangling from a branch. If I squirm around to point my face down, and if I squint a bit, I can see some vague shapes on the ground that look like they could be limbs. 

 

I flail around with my right arm, my sole remaining attached limb, grabbing at anything within reach. After a few seconds, there’s a sickening crack and just enough time to say, “Oh ffffuuuuuu –” before I come crashing down. 

 

Don’t let anyone tell you that bushes are a soft landing. 

 

I lie there a minute, catching my breath, which gives me enough time to wonder – shouldn’t I be dead? Hold up – am I _still_ dead? And how can I be catching any breath when I have, at best, half a lung, and most of my circulatory system is – vague handwave – over there? I hurt in so many ways I can’t even start to catalog them, but most pressing is the searing agony where things got torn apart, mixed with itching, like it’s trying to heal itself. 

 

I flop myself over onto my stomach, about as dignified as a stranded turtle, and one handedly army-crawl-slash-claw my way over to figure out if those limbs are mine. Once I reach one, a left arm, I find that neither the arm, nor the shredded bits of sleeve that cling to it, are familiar. I mean, sure, this arm’s owner did _not_ skip the tricep workout if you know what I’m saying, which sure points to its being mine. (What’s the point in false modesty between friends?) On the other hand, that flannel shirt it’s wearing goes far beyond “90s throwback” and waaaaay into “lumberjack chic”, and it’s about three sizes too big. Nothing I would be caught dead wearing. Except, I guess I kinda was, wasn’t I. 

 

I reach out with my right hand to grab the arm, and sure enough the whorled and mottled pattern of scars and sores is a match. Yup, this is mine alright. I’m not even sure what I plan to do with it, beyond the vague sense that it’s mine and I probably shouldn’t just leave it lying around. Not sure if I’m having a brainwave or just working on autopilot, I hold the frayed end up to my ragged shoulder, and the two halves start just… growing toward each other. It’s equal parts gross and awesome, like when you pop a really big zit and it splatters across the mirror. 

 

It takes a while to get assembled, the pain subsiding as things reattach, replaced with an itching so bad I wish I could crawl out of my own skin. I mean, I probably _could_ crawl out of my skin, except it’s looking like it would only grow back, which means more itching. I force myself to stay put. I hear the hooting of a vulture or whatever, and occasionally the sound of a vehicle passing by, headlights flashing across the trees. 

 

That whole time, I’m poking at my memory to try and figure out how and why I got here. The only things I manage to unscramble are the all too clear images of Francis’ Torture Porn Warehouse and Emporium. Nothing between getting shanked with rebar and this little outdoorsy adventure. 

 

Finally, my legs are attached well enough to limp in the direction of where the headlights came from. Walking feels like wading through mud. Thinking feels like drowning in syrup. (I do drown in syrup one time, but that comes much later.) I eventually stagger onto the shoulder of a two-lane highway between Nowhere City and BFE. No streetlights or signs in sight.  

 

I must still be moving in slow-mo, because it seems to happen while I’m blinking: a car whips around the hairpin, fog lights blazing, and swerves to miss me with a blaring of its horn. I stagger out of the way, and in the red of its tail lights see a second set of tracks, from much bigger tires, where something the size of a semi-truck nearly skidded off the road, in exactly the right spot to have sent something flying into the treeline where I woke up. That’s about as much confirmation as I’ll ever get that I was hit by a truck, and lived. 

 

No – not lived. Nobody can live when they’re in as many pieces as I just was. I died, and I came back. Somehow that realization hits me harder than, you know, actually waking up dismembered. 

 

The next set of headlights that comes around the bend, I’m ready for it, and I stick out a thumb. The car slows, looking like it’s about to stop for me. I really must still be in Canada. It gets close enough that I start limping over, hand reaching out to grab the passenger door handle, but when the driver gets a load of me, the car peels away, nearly taking my hand with it. 

 

I look down at myself: oversized lumberjack shirt and shredded sweatpants hanging off me, showing off more skin than an _X-Men_ summer beach special. I look like a melted candle fresh from an explosion in the flannel factory. Yeah, I wouldn’t give me a ride either. 

 

How far could it be to the next town? And which direction? South. South is always a good bet. 

 

“Is the sun coming up?” I mutter to myself. It is, just a vague glow on the horizon. “Then put it on your left.” 

 

 

**Two**

 

This has to be the least sexy kind of predicament bondage I’ve ever woken up to, even counting that one time in Madripoor with the snake lady. Actually, that one was kinda sexy now that I think about it. 

 

The first thing I notice is that my feet are dangling a couple of feet above the floor, and that my entire chest feels like it’s been flayed open. I blink a few times, and look down, only to see two gently curving blades sticking out of my ribcage, each ending in a distinctive black and red diamond-wrapped handle. Ahh, fucknuggets. Those shit-sucking pus-monkeys stabbed me with my own katanas. 

 

Oh well, no way out but down. I push against the wall with my feet, sliding myself along the steel. And if you think that doesn’t hurt like a sonofabitch, you ought to try it sometime.  

 

No but really, don’t try it. I’m the regenerating degenerate; you’re a comic-book nerd curled up in bed with your phone at 2am reading fanfiction. Come to think of it, why are you trying to imagine yourself in my well-used combat boots? I should be reading fic about _your_ life. “Dear Tumblr, please enjoy this lovingly edited gifset of Spider-Man’s ass. I spent seven hours getting the cheek bounces in gifs three and four to sync up, so don’t skimp on the reblogs.” 

 

Wait a minute, that is my life after all! And, yes, I admit, I took a few breaks during those seven hours to – _ahem_ – appreciate my own handiwork. 

 

Now where was I? Ah, yes: distracting you from a truly sucktastic part of my little story. 

 

Once I’ve wriggled the blades free from the wall, and from my own dashingly ripped torso, I stalk through the luxury hotel suite, a katana in each hand, blood dripping down the blades. If you don’t know it’s all my own blood, the effect is pret-ty darn menacing if I do say so myself. 

 

Too bad there’s nobody left here to be menaced. My mark must have murdered me and been gone a while back. They’ve cleaned out the suite, leaving everything trashed by our fight. Well, if that doesn’t just piss me off. I hoist up the bed, one of the few things left upright and relatively intact, and heave it up with a half grunt-half roar. It’s heavy, but not _that_ heavy – the roar is mostly just to vent my frustration. 

 

I slash into the underside of the mattress a few times, in case they stashed anything in there. No go. Nothing behind the “abstract” “fine art prints” that scatter the walls, or in the toilet cistern, or any of the usual places. Well, fuck-a-doodle. Stabbed, left for dead, the mark got away, and I don’t have so much as an envelope of cash or a dime baggie of MGH to show for it. 

 

Times like this, I feel like taking things out on someone, but not even I’m quite depraved enough to go on a spree through a hotel full of civilians. I just make do with the satisfaction of their screams as I stomp through the lobby, leaving bloody footprints in my wake. 

 

 

**Three**

 

Ahhh, the sweet, sweet smell of formaldehyde. It feels like a jar of rancid pickles crawled up my nostrils and died. 

 

How rude. Don’t they know that stuff gives you cancer? 

 

As far as perfumes to wake up to go, this one ranks lower than NYC alleyway dumpsters, if you’d believe it, but at least I’m never confused about where I am. Which is a good thing, in this case, cos I’m lying in a cold, dark space, with just a few inches on each side before my hand hits smooth metal. I’ve done the whole buried alive thing, and it’s even less fun than it sounds. So coming round with a nose full of _eau_ _de formaldehyde_ is at least a reassurance that I’m only locked in a morgue fridge. 

 

“Fridged again?” I say aloud. “Well, better me than some hapless chick who had the bad luck to date me, amirite?” 

 

There’s no way to tell from in here whether there’s anyone around; the doors are sealed tight, not the slightest crack of light around them. Last time this happened, I ended up scarring some poor morgue technician for life when I busted my way out, poor guy. I shrug. Oh well, at least it was funny. 

 

It’s hard to get much leverage, so I maneuver my arms above my head to push against the far wall, while kicking at the inside of the fridge door with my bare feet. This would be so much easier if I didn’t have bare feet, but noooooo, my boots are gone, along with the rest of my shit.  

 

“Maximum effort,” I grunt, and punch my heel into the stainless steel, then again, and again, feeling it buckle with the impact. Not for the first time, I curse the luck that gave me this out-of-control healing factor without super strength to back it up. If I had, like, the proportional strength of a tick or something, I’d be out of here by now. 

 

Suddenly, something gives way, and the door caves in, the hinges screeching as the screws tear out of the door frame. My foot slips into the broken hinge and suddenly my foot is slick with blood, slipping across the steel. 

 

I shove against the back wall and push myself out, feet flailing and failing to find the floor. The drawer slides forward, I slide forward, and eventually I come flopping out, hit the floor with my bloody foot, and just about trip over the sheet that’s tangled around my legs. 

 

“I’m fine, everything’s fine!” I squawk to the empty room as I slip on my own bloody footprint. That’s when I notice something cutting off the circulation in my favorite toe, so I lean over to rip off the toe tag, which causes the sheet to give up completely and slump to the floor. Yeah, baby, here comes Wade Motherfucking Wilson in his birthday suit! 

 

Better find my stuff, though, before I get out of here. NYPD tend to get testy when I shake my nakey moneymakey in public, even if I tell them it’s my birthday. 

 

 

**Four**

 

The first thing I feel when I wake up is disappointment. 

 

OK, disappointment is the second thing. The first thing is hunger – regrowing that brain matter burns some calories, let me tell you – and after that, the “oh shit” lurching sensation in my stomach. 

 

At first, I can’t think why I feel that way. I can’t think much of anything, to be honest (see above, re: regenerating brain matter). It’s kinda peaceful just to lie there on the bare floorboards and stare at a gross moldy patch of damp plaster in the corner of the ceiling, not thinking about anything. After a few moments, the muscles in my right hand twitch around something inflexible, and cold enough to feel through my glove. Ah, yeah, right: the grip of my trusty Desert Eagle. 

 

I push myself into a sitting position and run a hand over my face, and when I feel the rough drag of the glove against my bare face, the realization that I’m not wearing my mask causes my heart rate to spike. I look around in panic, until I recognize the living room of one of the shitholes I call safe houses. 

 

There’s a splatter of blood and brain matter on the wall behind me, and it starts coming back. Right, yeah. I know if I think real hard about it, all the reasons I decided to take this little vacation will all start coming back. Sure, I could think real hard… or I could just flop back onto the floor and stay on vacation a while. 

 

Yeah, that sounds good. 

 

Just a little longer... 

 

 

**Five**

 

This one’s actually a bit of a cheat. See, when you’re trapped under thirty thousand tons of concrete and glass, with an inch-thick steel bar through your chest, you’re gonna have the chance to expire a few times. Call it a bargain: eight deaths for the price of one. Just try and get a deal that good at the bodega, I dare you. 

 

My lungs are on fire with dust and blood, and the darkness is pressing in on all sides. The first time round, I think maybe this is it. Maybe I’ve finally kicked the bucket for good, and this is what I get for an afterlife. As far as personalized hellscapes go, this one’s a bit uninventive, but it does get points for how there’s nobody here to hear my quips, even if I had any hope of getting enough oxygen to make one. 

 

I think about pulling what’s left of my mask up over my nose, in case maybe that helps me catch a breath, but after a few abortive twitches I realize my left arm is crushed under a rubble pile, and the other one seems to be a bit… dismembered. 

 

OK, that’s enough consciousness for now. I thunk my head back down onto a broken cinder block and let myself be dead for a while. 

 

The next time I wake up, not much has changed. Oh, I’ve got a funny little baby arm on its way to growing in, which tells me it’s been hours, not days. I amuse myself by waving it uselessly in the dark for a bit, until I smack it against something heavy, which causes a dust shower and an ominous rumble. 

 

“Oopsie!” I say with a giggle, pulling the hand back to flop onto my chest. 

 

Wait, that’s not the rumble of impending building-a-lanche—that’s a jackhammer. Some poor fool is out there digging for survivors. Don't they realize nobody could have survived this? I let out another giggle, which triggers a round of coughing, which trails off into a wheeze as I die again for a bit. 

 

When I come back again, there’s a sliver of light falling into his rubble-filled pit somewhere off to the left. A long optic fiber tube snakes down and twists from side to side before moving toward me. 

 

“Ooh, a camera!” I blow a few kisses at the unfortunate onlookers. “If I’d known, I’d have dressed for the occasion.” I pose with duck lips and my freshly grown hand (now full-size) throwing a vee beside my face. I know exactly how little of the mask remains – the temperature’s dropped enough that I can feel the chill on my face – and I’m rocking a sweet asymmetric sleeveless look where my old arm got ripped off at the shoulder. It would be a good look on someone who didn’t look like a side of rotting beef lost a fight with a cheese grater. 

 

“Um, sorry about the show,” I add, toward the camera, and let my hand drop back down. “Hope nobody out there is eating.” 

 

"Wade!" a voice breaks in, echoing down from where the light breaks in. "Wade, is that you down there?" 

 

Oh, hey, I know that voice! After a few seconds, a familiar young woman's head peeks over the edge, long black hair held back neatly with a purple headband. 

 

"You bet your sweet tushy, Hawkeye-not-the-Hawkguy." I try to grin, and it feels lopsided even for me. 

 

"Just don't move, OK?" For some reason, Kate’s voice has gone all wobbly. "You sit tight and we're going to get you out of there!" 

 

I look down at the rebar impaled through my chest. It's embedded in the rubble under my back, and about a foot from my chest, it crooks over at an angle, the end ragged and twisted. 

 

"Yuh-huh, staying put. No problemo." 

 

The shaft of light is widening. They must have some heavy equipment out there, digging the survivors out of the wreckage. I watch as Kate's athletic form picks its way down a few feet, until she finds a place to perch on the rubble near my head, one foot wedged against a concrete block to help her balance, and the other dangling off the edge. She’s all kitted out in search-and-rescue gear, with the utility belt and the flashlights. 

 

"Here." She reaches up to her shoulder and pulls loose the end of a tube, which she sticks in my mouth. It’s attached to one of those water backpack things. "Thought you might be thirsty." 

 

I’m so thirsty I don’t even make a quip right away about a hot babe hand-feeding me, just let her put the tube between my lips and gulp down as much water as I can handle. 

 

She’s got this worried little crinkle between her eyebrows, so I do an exaggerated smack of my lips. Then, I lean up, cupping my hand near my mouth as if I have a secret, and Kate leans down, curious. 

 

"Don't tell Weasel," I say, "but you're my new favorite barkeep." I tilt my head to the side. "You don't happen to have any jello shots, do you?" 

 

Kate rolls her eyes, which is way better than the crinkly-concern thing she was doing a minute ago. 

 

It takes them two more hours to dig me out, and Kate stays the whole time, trading banter and indulging me by playing ‘I Spy’. (“No, Wade, you can’t have ‘intestines' – you’ve already had ‘guts’.”) 

 

After they’ve sawn the ragged end off the rebar, I grab a chunk of concrete and pull myself forward and off the metal bar. The look on Kate’s face is somewhere between revulsion and fascination. 

 

“This kind of thing happen to you a lot?” asks Kate as she clambers out of the rubble hole into the glare of a floodlight, and turns around to offer me a hand. 

 

“Eh,” I shrug, looking down at the hole through my torso and watching as it closes up. “More than you'd think.” 

 

“I mean this,” says Kate, waving a hand to encompass the collapsed apartment building, the crowd of onlookers behind yellow police tape, the EMTs closing the doors on the final ambulance and preparing to drive away. “Waking up dead in a pile of rubble. ’Cos, you know, I had at least six people tell me they’d be dead without you. You risked your life – you _gave_ your life – to save them from that building.” 

 

She sounds impressed. Awed, even. I shuffle my feet and tug on the tatters of my mask, which does nothing to cover up either my discomfort or the horrorshow that is my face. 

 

“See you around,” I say, turning away, and shooting her a two-fingered wave over my shoulder. “Give Hawkass my fuck you.” 

 

 

**+One**  

 

I think about opening my eyes, but right away I know it’s a bad idea. The light bleeds red through my eyelids, tiny little veins and whatnot standing out against the glare. I know what happens when I wake up with this much light blaring in my face, and I want to take a little nap before I get started. See, cos once I start, I’m going to have to finish—to fight my way out of some lab, unalive some minions, you know the drill—and I’m perfectly comfy right here, thankyouverymuch. 

 

Come to think of it, why _am_ I comfy? My head is pillowed on something soft and warm, I’m lying flat, and when I twitch my hand, my wrist jerks up, even though I'm expecting it to be clamped down, since I'm in a lab and all. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a well-made leather cuff as much as the next pervert, but there’s a time and a place. 

 

“Welcome back,” a voice says, from somewhere above my head. Whoever it is, they’re trying to put on a show of lightness, but a note of stress bleeds through. There comes the sound of paper rustling. “Hungry?” 

 

That’s about the time when my sense of smell finishes regenerating, and the aroma hits the back of my nostrils: cumin, chili, and cilantro feature prominently, along with the savory smell of pork. My stomach growls loudly. 

 

“Guess that's a yes,” says the voice, a smile laced through it. It sounds young-ish, friendly… and very familiar. 

 

I decide to risk opening one eye. The light hits my brand-new cornea with a searing pain, and water springs into my eyes. I blink rapidly as the scene comes into view. 

 

As my eyes adjust, I realize that what I took for a lab spotlight is actually just neon blaring from a neighboring hotel, the white corporate logo circling the head that looms above me. 

 

“That’s a bit on the nose,” I slur, my mouth not quite back in working order. 

 

“What the huh, now?” says the figure, which is finally resolving into something recognizable. 

 

I reach up with a wavering hand and pat the red, mask-covered cheek. “Nice halo, Spidey-Boy.” 

 

He makes a show of rolling his head so I can tell he’s rolling his eyes under cover of the mask. He also lets slip this huff-laugh that sounds like relief. 

 

As I get my bearings, I realize I’ve been lying with my head pillowed on his leg. The desire to stay right here and enjoy it wars with my need for food; eventually my hunger wins out.  

 

I push myself upright, swinging my legs around so I’m sitting beside him on the parapet. You like that, ‘parapet’? It means the wall thingy that goes around the edge of a roof. I learned it from Double-D himself, Hell’s Kitchen’s own vigilante menace, while we were hanging out on one. Well, he was hanging out; I was hanging by my underoos from a gargoyle. You get familiar with roof furniture when you spend as much time up there as I do. 

 

Anyway, so there I am sitting next to the one and only Spider-Babe on the roof of an apartment building with our feet dangling 6 floors above the streets of Queens, and he’s handing me a bag full of tacos. “Now I know what you’re thinking,” I say, rolling up my mask and taking a huge bite. “This is when I ask, ‘Am I dead??!!?’ Well, let me tell you, I’ve been dead, and the view is never this good.” I leer at him a bit, but the effect may be slightly ruined by the lettuce that sprays out as I chomp.  

 

“Ugh,” he says, recoiling, but he’s got his mask rolled up too, chewing on a taco of his own, and he lets slip a little smile. “Say it – don’t spray it!” 

 

I swallow the mouthful and look down at my hands, at the greasy paper clinging to the rest of the taco, then up at Spider-Man’s face in wonder. “Are these from El Guero?” My absolute favorite taco truck. I saved the owner, Manny, from the Mole Man one time and ever since then he always throws in a couple churros for free.  

 

Spider-Man shrugs, and we eat in silence for a bit. 

 

“How did you know?” I can’t help but blurt out. 

 

“El Guero? You never shut up about it.” 

 

“No, I mean – how did you know I was dead? How did I get up here?” 

 

“We, ah –” he rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “It’s kind of a phone tree thing. That some of us did. Kate heard about an incident on the police scanner, and, well, I was the closest…” He flicks a chunk of pico de gallo off his leg, pretending to be fascinated by watching it fall into the alley below. 

 

I gawp at him. “Kate? You and sexy Hawkeye have… a phone tree? About me?” 

 

“And some of the others – Billy, Teddy, even some of the Heroes for Hire.” There’s a pause, then he claps his hand over his mouth. “Oh shit, Luke is going to kill me. Don’t tell him I – you know what, never mind. Expecting you to keep quiet is –” Here, he gives up and just full-on facepalms with his taco-free hand, shaking his head as he does so. “Oh my god, I should just move out of state already.” 

 

I make a show of pretending to clean my ear out with my finger. “Luke… Cage? _Luke Cage_ is in on this?” 

 

“Kate told us about the thing with the collapsed building, and…” 

 

“And?” 

 

“And-we-just-didn’t-like-to-think-of-you-waking-up-alone-OK?” he blurts, all in a rush. 

 

I don’t know what to do with that information. I blink rapidly a few times, but I have my mask on, so he can’t see it. Suddenly it gets hard to swallow, so I set my food down, greasy paper and all, on the parapet. 

 

Spidey goes still. “Wade?” he says. “Are you OK?” 

 

I nod, unable to find the words for once. Instead, I grab Spidey in a huge bear hug. He squawks, and drops his taco into the alley, his arms trapped inside mine, hands flailing in the air like a little baby T. rex. 

 

“You’re kinda freakin’ me out here,” he says, patting me on the shoulder, which is just about all he can reach. 

 

I just keep holding on to cover for the fact that I haven’t thought of anything to say yet. I may or may not take the opportunity to nuzzle his neck just a _teeny_ bit. 

 

“C’mon now,” he laughs, shoving me off. “You’re making this weird.” I notice that he doesn’t move away, though, his leg warm where it presses against mine. 

 

“No, you’re right,” I say. “Sitting on a roof with your best spandex bro should never be weird.” 

 

“Shut up and eat your tacos,” he says, and shoves the rest of the bag at me. 

 

“This is the best. Night. Ever,” I sigh as I dig in. 

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is from the perspective of Deadpool, who repeatedly wakes up after having been dead. He's usually uncertain what caused his death, and sometimes he's been dismembered, and the parts haven't grown back. Warnings for: blood, impalement, dismembered limbs, mentions of guts and brain matter, mentions of being buried alive, mentions of torture, and implied nonconsensual medical experimentation. One of the deaths was a suicide, but it is not described in detail, nor are the reasons for suicide given.
> 
> Also, a half-eaten taco gets dropped into an alley. Party foul!
> 
> If this fic were a book, I would put this comment on the back cover: "I was a little grossed out - sev (my beta reader)".


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